Our friends at DD Speedshop recently went through hell installing and attempting to troubleshoot and repair a Holley Sniper EFI system on their Chevy Nomad Power Tour ride. Ultimately, they ended up pulling the entire system and replaced it with a carb.
Here is our perspective on the history of these systems, how they differ from OEM units, and specifically why the perceived need for these conversions evolved and the problems they are attempting to overcome.
The cause and possible solutions may surprise you.
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Luke over at Thunderhead289 would be someone to discuss this with. His "carb cheater" system he has come up with is a start in that direction. I think if you were to pose this to him, I think he might be able to create that work around you are pondering on. I think a collaboration between you two would be interesting.
Uncle Tony and Paul Shinn are my favorite car-tubers. I mainly just want a simple, reliable car that I can learn to fix, maintain, and keep running forever.
Had a FiTech years back for about a month…. nope. Just wasn’t right on a classic vehicle.
Factory GM OBS systems are simple and run forever.
I've done plenty of EFI tuning and I agree wholeheartedly with Uncle Tony. Consumers (ill informed??) want these systems, so Holley makes one to meet the market and make some bucks. I'm sure the guys at Holley are well aware of it's shortcomings…..
I've been an automotive technician for 25 years my biggest complaint with these Holly systems is that yes they are infinitely tunable but they don't have very much self diagnostic capability if they combined obd 2 self diagnostic With the adjustability That would be great Other issues is you have large windows of specs to tell the computer such as Cam specs when you're setting up the system They all seem to leave you kind of out on the edge of a Gray area and you have to tune it For desirable results I've installed a couple of these over the last few Years Mild engines seem to run well Super hyperformance large Cam's shaft stuff sorry to say it still runs better with a carburetor
Wondering if some reliability issues stem from installation issues.
I see it all the time at work , people doing it wrong on generator installations.
Is that charger for sale sir?
Honda prelude twin carb worst vacuum nightmare ever you didn't have enoughIs alphabetical stickers in the kit or enough colored markers to mark all the vacuum lines if you had or had to pull it and Intake or carbs take off horrible
Thats what i keep telling these kids. All this high tech Elon Musk crap this and that smh. I'm just like okay zoomer good luck with that
I wouldn't call the engineers that developed the dod (displacement on demand) systems geniuses by any stretch of the imagination.
I'm a 60 year old technician. I've seen the technology progress..before hel ignition and electronic fuel injection. It's like government control of education. If you stay within the guidelines it will work.. it does not work well with old school. A vacuum Guage, dwell meter,timing light. Fuel today is hard on simple ideology. You can program an ecm. It's hard to program a old school idea. I do enjoy your ideas with D and D . And his with you. It's a great share off real life
A poorly tuned engine management system, mechanical or electronic, will run bad in some or all conditions. I like efi because you can absolutely make it dialed for summer time, then next summer, your tune is still good. You may have to adjust during the winter and everywhere in between but a few runs through the seasons, your car will start run and drive great every time.
I dont like vehicles with more than 1 computer. I love my terminator x
Most people don't want carburetors today so why do you think Holly's not working on carburetors more huh
Yeah, crazy low boiling point and fast evaporation of today's gas really make drivability difficult. Holley and Edelbrock need to make their carbs work on the new fuel.
Glad I took a look at this. I've pondered as to whether I should eventually convert my old school behicles to EFI. Some carbs are becoming just as complicated. I have an Edelbrock on an FE390 that I can't get to run right and appears to be heat related. Idles fine but acceleration is choppy like its going lean. My friend thinks I have about 4lb fuel pressure and we all know Edelbrock lives of 5lb or forget it! Dont care to install an electric pump. I used to frown on Holley but it's looking like they're taking top rank now.
The Throttle Position Sensors on most of these systems are junk. Nowhere near OEM quality
Also doesn’t help the aftermarket that Windows comes out with a new OS constantly and sometimes the software can’t transfer over
I truly believe Dan didn’t do anything wrong with that setup. He over thought and over corrected anything that could of gone wrong. I believe the unit had a problem and he didn’t get quality control from the manufacturer. Sure they tried to help but I believe it was a failure with the unit .
In 2007 one of my friends told me, "I hate my car." He had a Cadillac and the computer made the driving experience miserable. The computer fought the driver and "wouldn't let the driver" do certain things. He hated it. He further said, "My car is a Communist Dictator."
The hot rodder IS the backyard engineer. Yes, I agree with you totally on your rant. Yes, ECM has went too far. Yes, I love my carb and points engines. I even engineered a vapor lock proof setup for my beloved Qjets. No certificate on my wall. Just think return line.
Now I have a fetish for propane engines. More to on that later.
Mikel.
Hey Tony pretty cool that you brought up your article about the 86 Regal T type. You called it back then for sure. As a current owner of a stock 87 Buick Turbo T and 85 Monte SS with a Gen 4 454 and QFT slayer 750 , ive got the best of both worlds.. I can get into the Buick and it starts right up, no fuss no muss and get off my driveway as quick as any mondern day car but the Monte is a different story.. After a couple of years with that carb im still fussing with the choke setting.. it cranks over and starts quickly but i need to keep my foot on the gas / rev to prevent stall. the motor warms up quickly and things are good after about a minute or so but damn its annoying. ive considered an FI Tech or sniper but i just dont want to deal with an electric fuel pump and the system cost. Again once the car warms up its awesome no issues no stall runs like it has "FI" .
Or just use an original factory system. Building a small block Ford? Use a 90s 5.0 Ford port EFI system. All the parts are still available from Ford or even the chain parts stores. There's is all kinds of tuning info on the net for these systems.
Can we just get carb fuel additives (anti-evaporation additive) from the old days… in a can. ?
Right on UT, 100%. "Old country here too. And, like to see wins,not fails, always. The best thing about old cars is, you dont have to have that $#%*. If ya cant dig it, buy a new whatever. ,,Izzy Strong,, (Ks, Ole Man),,,
As if carbs don’t have issues?? I’ve had a both an edelbrock and a quick fuel unusable out the box. The edelbrock was warped out of the gate.
The quick fuel carb had defective floats from day one. Returned it.
Put Holley efi on and NO problems since.
Was never about changes in fuel, was about reducing emission. Efi is far superior to carburetors. Ashame in your 60+ years on earth you didn’t take the time to learn to work on them.
My dads buddy has a 350 with an eslebeock 4 barrel, its backfiring under acceleration, any ideas? It's a 1600 not sure cfms
I used fuel injection on a few projects. I found the Chevy TBI system to be bullet proof. Takes different tools to tune that old OBD-1 stuff but once done it’s good. Limited on power? Yep no crazy builds with it. More fuel efficient? Ehh debatable certainly not a loss of economy. I’ve had solid results with it. I don’t get down on people who stick with carbs. Your car your money your choice.
What ever happened to the joy of owning an automobile was the ability to not only own,but keep your autobile kept in tune ,it's not that hard ?
A lot of the younger generation wants what they deem to be the latest greatest technology so they don’t want those old style carburetor’s
Never had good Holley reliability, I always used to switch over the factory, "Roaches" on my Ponchos, or Chevys to Eldelbrock, so much better reliability and once again I feel like I've been to school by a man only a few years my Senior, great job UT…
I think one huge issue with the aftermarket efi systems is the use of cheap chinese/inferior parts. Like you said The oem sytems use quality parts that were tested and put through the paces. These systems have cheap parts that just arent reliable long term.
I put a sniper system in one of my rigs as its a off road rig and thats senario that a carb just doesnt work as well as efi. Its decent now after a huge learning curve to get it running right but ill never trust it like a carb. In pretty much any other situation im with you that anolog is better. Or oem efi.
Its called Marketing !!!
They dont care if there products have failure. The buyers have to buy more stuffs to make there carburator work.
Talking about Gasoline potion we get here, im about to put a windshield water bottle with a manual pump beside my 389ci. After 1 or 2 weeks, its a friggin joke how much the gas dissipate out the the bowl. Im about to break the pedal from pounding it on the floor. And the Carter on it dont leak.
That was very interresting content mister Tony.
Great vid, people are always telling me to EFI my 454 chevelle and have always resisted because you can’t beat a good ol carburetor!
I wouldn't waste my time on that EFI garbage if you paid ME. Haha! Carbs forever.
Somebody just needs to combine the carb and efi and fix everything in one go
I agree with this. I have a friend who installed the MSD FI system on a high dollar crate engine and its shitty from the word go. I have begged him to put a holley carb on it and get away from the FI but he is still tring to sort it out. I dont like these systems.
Very interesting topic here. Honestly, I would love to see a true plug-and-play EFI system that has been thoroughly tested, has decent parts availability, and is somewhat universal. I've been adjusting carbs and setting dwell since the late 80's, and my old junk gets harder to tune every day. Almost enough to make a guy start buying modern junk.
Pretty sure you just opened a lot of mines about why the carbs are so hard to start these days. Every starting issue you discussed I’ve had and been so damn frustrated
Thanks for that take on aftermarket EFI.
Huh ? What towed over what ? Clueless your efi fails maybe probably NOT ,you rip it off and put on a cheap carb on the side of the road easy peasy nobody is getting towed your getting towed means you know nothing of both .
Me and my dad put a fitech system on a stock dodge magnum and it worked fantastic. Did not work well when we tried to put it on a high hp chevy engine with an extreme cam. I would definitely put one on a daily driver just for mpg reasons.
The simplicity of carburetors is a double-edged sword. Every idiot and their dog thinks 'it's a simple carburetor, I can fix it' and they do. Or attempt to. And make a mess of it, because they have no idea how it works or how to fix it. Those people might not admit it, but really what they like is the simple assurance of a computer thinking for them. That's where EFI comes in. The problem with EFI is that you are forced to rely on some programmer who, in the non-OEM case, never saw your particular car and has no idea what they're writing a program for. Yet they will write 5 million lines of code anyway in the vain attempt to make an EFI system that works on your oddball car that they've never seen. Really the problem with EFI is that it's (generally) not open source. Like a carburetor, you have to be intimately familiar with every tiny part of it in order to make it work for your car. That means, yes, you need to be intimately familiar with 5 million lines of code.
Granted there are some open source EFI systems. Mostly Speeduino. I've yet to try tinkering with it.
This is like the same story on Pertronix Ignitions…Guys who need to install those units just dont know how to set points
Sniper has rf frequency issues that ruin its reliability.